Best Restaurants 2019: Frasca Food and Wine

A meal at Pearl Street’s 15-year-old fine-dining Italian juggernaut begins as it does in Friuli, the region that inspires Frasca’s menus: with a complimentary splash of a bright Friulian white, meant to prime your palate and your appetite. Wine director Carlin Karr’s list and Frasca’s skillful service team—led by Master Sommelier and owner Bobby Stuckey and general manager Rose Votta—usher you through the rest of the experience, pairing co-executive chefs Kelly Jeun and Eduardo Valle Lobo’s refined, seasonally driven fare with gems from the producers that excite them most. (Premier cru Chablis from Domaine Vocoret is on Karr’s by-the-glass list right now, and she “can’t get enough” of the young yet powerful 2016 Chave Hermitage Farconnet.) Finally, Frasca’s after-dinner drink cart appears, its bottles and decanters promising bittersweet, herbaceous liqueurs—grappas and Armagnacs and amari—that underscore the breadth and depth of Frasca’s attention to everything liquid and lovely. $$$$, 1738 Pearl St., Boulder, 303-442-6966

(MORE: Read our 2019 restaurant review of Frasca Food and Wine)